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I'd Rather Have the Truth, No Matter How Hard

Most of us tell ourselves that we want the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear. But at the same time, most people push away every truth that isn't in line with how they want things to be. It's an ironically easy bit of hypocrisy, in an ugly sort of way - every time you hear a truth that you don't want to hear, just tell yourself that it's not actually true. That's how we're able to sell ourselves the story that we want the truth, no matter how hard, and at the same time run from every truth that we don't want to hear. I'd be surprised if more than 20% of the people in this group actually fit the criteria, outside of their self-image.

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LysanderFremont · 36-40, M

It is tough because we have to doubt something that goes against our ordinary way of thinking. Imagine having false information and acting against what you originally believed in.

I am playing Devil's Advocate here, but to take it as a metaphor, imagine being in the Star Wars universe and someone were to tell you that you work for the Empire. Would you stop working for them? Move your family elsewhere and fight against what you had roots in?

Truth brings a lot of harsh questions out. Difficult ones.

BlueDiver · 36-40, M

What you said makes me think of a great line I heard once: Surround a child with lies and he clings to them like a teddy bear, like his mother's hand - and the worse, the darker the lie, the more deeply he has to draw it inside of himself in order to bear the lie at all.

Anyway, I realized a while ago that the truth only destroys. It doesn't build anything. Sometimes the things that it destroys need to be destroyed. Sometimes the wreckage opens the door to building something wonderful. The truth opens a lot of doors and can do a great deal of good - but none of that is guaranteed. The only thing that's guaranteed by the truth is destruction of what was, good or bad.

To use a story as a metaphor - people can debate forever about whether the whole garden of Eden apple thing was a good thing or a bad thing - was it a terrible sin against god that has tainted us forever with the knowledge of good and evil, or was it a choice to gain independence and adulthood rather than blind obedience. Either way, at the end of the day, Eden irrevocably burned for us.